With the disappointment of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon put behind me it was time to move on to something new. It's time for DOOM!

This is a game I've had on my Steam wishlist for years. Because my wishlist is huge it takes time to go through it and because I pretty much only buy games on sale I tend to just buy whatever wishlisted game that's on sale when I'm looking for a new game. Now that everything on Steam is on sale it was DOOMs turn.

I don't really know much about the game apart from it being about ripping and tearing through demons in a plethora of brutal ways. I also know that it's quite critically acclaimed, being in the top 100 best rated games on Steam. I also know that it has one of the most killer soundtracks to a video game ever. As for the lore and story I'm completely blank.

In the first age, in the first battle...

The start of the game is a little disappointing much due to my own expectation. Having listened to the soundtrack for years I was expecting the game to begin with the words of I, Dogma before transitioning into the brutal Rip & Tear in some sort of brutal and awesome cutscene. It didn't happen.

Instead the game starts off with us waking up in some sort of burial chamber about to be attacked by possessed shamblers. We rip off the chains holding us down and brutally smash the head of the closest enemy before picking up a gun and go to town on the rest. Not the start I was expecting but a pretty good one nonetheless.

Apparently we've been entombed in stone. Now that demons from Hell are invading Mars we wake up to deal with it. Through some holograms we find out that someone really didn't want us to escape from this tomb. It really gives us the feeling that we're quite dangerous.

Soon thereafter we find the Praetor Suit and while putting it on we see a sort of cutscene involving a lot of fire and some ominous looking demons. I suspect that was a glimpse of Hell itself but I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure though that it's some sort of premonition or foreshadowing for something that will come later in the game.

Combat Mechanics

Since this game is all about brutally murdering demons the combat mechanics really need to be on par with that. And they are.

Early on we learn how to perform glory kills. This basically means damaging an enemy enough so that we can finish them off in some brutal way. This involves ripping their limbs off, smashing their heads to the ground, punching them so hard in the head their heads explode and a plethora of other ways. It's insane, it's brutal and it's my favorite way of murdering demons. So awesome.

We eventually find more weapons like the shotgun, the heavy assault rifle and the plasma rifle. I'm seeing a lot of empty slots on my weapon wheel so there's probably more to come. All of these can be upgraded in different ways. You can add a secondary firing mode to them which makes the gun act differently when you hold down right click. The shotgun for example can be modded to fire an explosive shot.

Each of the secondary firing modes can be upgraded as well. Following the example of the explosive shot from the shotgun that can be upgraded to have a shorter cooldown or have a bigger explosion area. That's pretty cool.

The Praetor Suit can also be upgraded. When traversing each level you can find dead elite soldiers lying around and by taking out a little USB-stick looking thingy from their suits you can upgrade yours. These are upgrades like taking reduced damage from environmental effects or having a larger radius on your map scan which will lead to the uncovering of more items and collectibles.

One thing worthy of a mention is that health doesn't regenerate in this game. If you're low on health you gotta run around looking for heals or glory kill an enemy to force a health drop. The same goes with ammo, where you can also chainsaw kill enemies to force them to drop ammo. This means you can't go hide behind a box if you're low on health and just wait for it to regenerate. It's keeping to the good old formula.

Level Design

I was quite curious as to how the level design would be. The levels from the old DOOM games were absolute mazes with no clear direction as to where to go. The levels here have a good mix of mazes and linearity. I've managed to get completely lost a couple of times but luckily there's a map to guide you and the levels are small enough so that you'll eventually find your way.

They have also done a pretty good job at hiding secrets. Around the levels you'll find secrets tunnels, nooks and crannies that hide items like a full shield or even small DOOM figures which are pretty cool. Each level holds two of these figures and each of them unlocks a character model that can be viewed from the menu. The enemy design in this game is pretty cool so I'm loving that.

Each level starting from the second also has a couple of challenges that can be completed to gain more weapon upgrade points. These consist of killing enemies in various ways, finding secrets or collectibles as well as killing as many enemies as you can on each level.

Also, if you haven't listened to the soundtrack yet it's time to do so.

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